Development of the Frequency of Suicidal Ideation Inventory: Evidence for the Validity and Reliability of a Brief Measure of Suicidal Ideation Frequency in a College Student Population

Abstract

The present research focused on the development of a brief measure of suicidal ideation frequency, namely, the Frequency of Suicidal Ideation Inventory (FSII). Study 1 examined the latent structure of the FSII in a sample of 399 US college students. Results of exploratory factor analysis indicated a one-factor solution accounting for 86.96 % of the variance. Study 2 provided support for the internal reliability of the FSII across four different international samples (viz., US, Turkey, Hungary, and China). Within the US sample, the FSII was found to possess good 6-week test-retest reliability. Moreover, an examination of the associations between the FSII and important measures of suicide risk factors (e.g., suicidal behaviors) and suicide protective factors (e.g., flourishing) provided support for the construct validity of our new measure in an independent sample of 143 US college students. In addition, we found preliminary evidence supporting the FSII as a useful measure of the likelihood of making a future suicide attempt and evidence for the utility of the FSII over established measures of suicide risk in predicting depressive symptoms. Overall, the present findings provide promising evidence for the validity and reliability of the FSII as a brief measure of SI frequency in adults.

Understanding the Association Between Negative Life Events and Suicidal Risk in College Students: Examining Self‐Compassion as a Potential Mediator

“…According to the model proposed by Bonner and Rich (), both distal (viz., depressive symptoms) and proximal (viz., suicidal behaviors) variables are believed to increase the risk of attempting or completing suicide in college students. Indeed, consistent with their framework, findings from numerous studies over the past three decades have consistently implicated depression and suicidal behaviors (e.g., suicide ideation) as important risk factors associated with suicide in college student populations (Chang & Chang, ; Farabaugh et al., ; Furr, Westefeld, McConnell, & Jenkins, ; Smith et al., ; Westefeld & Furr, ). Given the seriousness of suicide and its prevalence in college student populations (Drum et al., ; Schwartz & Friedman, ; Westefeld et al., ), it is not surprising that researchers have focused on identifying important predictors of suicidal risk in college student populations.…”

Are Loneliness and Emotional Intelligence Important Factors for Adolescents? Understanding the Influence of Bullying and Cyberbullying Victimisation on Suicidal Ideation

“…Suicidal ideation. The Frequency of Suicidal Ideation Inventory (FISS; Chang & Chang, 2016; Spanish version by Sánchez-Álvarez et al, 2020) was administered to assess how frequently participants have considered suicidal thoughts over the previous 12 months (e.g., "How often have you believed that your life was not worth living? "), using five items.…”

Untangling the Emotional Intelligence-Suicidal Ideation Connection: The Role of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies in Adolescents

“…Suicidal ideation was evaluated using the ‘Frequency of Suicidal Ideation Inventory’ (FSII [ 34 ]; Spanish validation by Sánchez-Álvarez et al [ 35 ]). The FSII is composed of five Likert-type items that have to be scored in the range 1–5 (i.e., from ‘never’ to ‘almost every day’).…”